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Cold weather concerns with Nest Doorbell Battery

fernadno
Community Member

Hi,

Similar to some other posters here, I recently noticed that my Nest Doorbell battery (activated 2021-08-28), although wired, had lost much of its charge (down to 3%, indicated a 23 hour time to charge in Google Home app).

The 23 hour recharge estimate remained unchanged for 3 hours when kept wired to doorbell wiring.

From another recommendation on the forum, I decided to try unplugging from the doorbell wires and taking the doorbell indoors to charge via USB cable until 100%.

My doorbell remains plugged into a USB port, showing 2% charged, and an 18 hr 29 min time until full. It has been plugged in now for 1 hour, with no noticeable change in charge condition.

Outdoor temperatures have only recently dropped to below 0 degrees Celsius for longer than a few hours (max -7 degrees C).

Should I be concerned about the battery condition and how this doorbell is reacting to colder weather? Winter has yet to truly begin, and I am worried that this doorbell will not be functional as temperatures continue to drop. I know that ambient operating temperatures fall within -20 and +40 C (as indicated here).

 

 

 

1 Recommended Answer

Brad
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey folks,


We appreciate the feedback on our battery Cameras and Doorbells. Our team is looking closely into this behavior, and we will continue to pass along reports we see here in the Community. To learn more about cold weather battery charging behavior in Nest cameras and doorbells, please stop by our Help Center.

 

Best regards,

Brad.

View Recommended Answer in original post

606 REPLIES 606

FraserM
Community Member

It's happening in Edmonton too.  It got to -17 and lower and the camera has turned off due to extreme weather.  This product is useless for anyone who lives in cold weather.  There definitely needs to be something done or said by Google to address this.  I bought this product to help with security, but if it's not working correctly... Google really needs to speak up about this, it's in their own best interest 

mpb65
Community Member

Again, where are you Google???  This is an expensive product and the current performance is not acceptable.  I, too, was offered a replacement.  What for?  To have the aggravation again?  This is a major product flaw which needs to be solved either by an upgrade recall or a refund.   I love the product when it works, but when it doesn't it is extremely annoying, especially with the increase of porch pirates during the holiday season.  Wake up Google! 

mpb65
Community Member

Exactly, is anyone from Google actually monitoring this forum and passing our feedback on???

mpb65
Community Member

It's Day 3 of trickle charging in "mild" Toronto weather.  Only at 14%.   Ridiculous.

When the cold weather hits on the weekend, it will be dead.

dassub
Community Member

Mine has been pretty good during this mild Toronto spell. Just over 70%. Which transformer are you using?

It wont matter what you use when it gets to -15c

MplsCustomer
Bronze
Bronze

There is this Dec. 15 article on PiunikaWeb:

https://piunikaweb.com/2021/12/15/nest-cam-battery-users-concerned-over-cold-weather-performance/

(We continue to NOT see problems with our plugged-in Google Nest Camera Battery in Minnesota with temperatures so far as low as 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit. If we disconnect the power, it shows a 100% charge.  The camera is mounted under a camera shield.)

grandbeach-ca
Community Member

everyone needs to share feedback : this is the best way to get something done:.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7071494?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3D

Akabi
Community Member

Some lovely -25 here and the doorbell is struggling to stay alive. I have two questions:

- Someone suggested getting a heating cable for piping and installing it around the doorbell, but I don't know if that's even feasible. Has anybody tried something similar? I'm past the return period and I would like to find a way to use it.

- I tried bringing it in and setting it on a window to just function as a camera, but it keeps telling me it needs to be mounted. Does that mean I need to remove the mount from the wall and reinstall the whole thing to use it as a basic camera?

It senses when it's on the mount... if I recall via a magnet on the mount but I can't remember.  Maybe you could fool it by taping a small magnet on the back?

I didn't know that. I might try with a magnet, yeah. Maybe just a small one first, just in case.

alirahimpour89
Community Member

I have had it connected without charging it after it died just to see when it starts to charge again, today is the first day it has been 0 celsius or warmer all day and now it has woken up again and has 1% battery. But it charges reaaaaaally slow. Also really weird that our chime rang and Google home speakers announced that someone was outside when it woke up.

Google????  Are you listening????

Can add that in 24 hours with temperatures around 1-3 celsius it has been charged to 17% but seems to stand still now. Will be 0 to -3 tomorrow so will see if it will stand still or drain the battery. This is with battery saving mode activated tho.

And this is the problem.  Gets too cold and then stops charging.  Not a very useful product at that stage.

After a night with battery saver mode and 0 celsius it has been stuck on 17% so I guess it's enough to hold the charge but not to charge it any more...

Still at 17%... 

It's -5 celcius and the battery percentage has already started to drop... 16% now, nobody has pushed the doorbell.

-11 Celsius today, still 16% but I guess it's like this because of battery saver mode. Only records when someone presses the button.

12% today after a cold day around -17 Celsius...

Same temperature today, drained down to 6% with all battery saving stuff activated. Would probably die instantly without all special battery stuff...

Dbarrag
Community Member

Calgarian here. As all others the camera died due to a mild cold weather spell. Stopped charging. Brought it in, charged again via USB, reconnected and it seemed to work well again for a few hours. This morning it appears to have battery but it does not display anything. Temp is -20C which is quite normal for winter here. I think this product is flawed, will try to return it to Best Buy. Any recommendations for similar cameras that would be able to survive Canadian winters? 

As expected Google fails in the hardware department. I should have known better coming from years of using pixel phones, tablets etc. Ugh

 

mpb65
Community Member

Complete failure.  This should not be a hit or miss thing depending on the weather.

eknoop
Community Member

Any idea on whether this affects the wired-only version as well?

No, wired version is fine from all reports I've seen.

had the wired version for 1,5 year without a problem, handled a week with -25 celsius too.

As I may move over to the Nest Hello/Wired version, just curious what drew you to the battery version, since you had the wired one first.  Was it the local AI, or something else?   How was your overall experience with it?   I know given it was a 2018 model that it's going to be end of life at some point, maybe soon, so that's one factor to consider.

Yeah the local AI and just thought it looked better. Also the plastic/glass on the front had a crack, don't know why it got it. And yeah, just thought a 3 year newer product would be much better and faster etc. Overall the old one worked great though.

Well battery option wired in is attractive over wired one. Let's say your electricity goes out, it would still record. I keep my internet on UPS, so not going to loose anything for network connectivity either

Dbarrag
Community Member

Update: the camera was back on and it has worked properly since yesterday. Temp has been between -20C and -15C. Battery shows the infinite sign (connected) so I am hopeful. 

mpb65
Community Member

Again, "hopeful" should not be the criteria for whether or not a product works.  Google please fix this.

firmwaredev
Bronze
Bronze

I'd made some changes a week or so ago to reduce events somewhat (only a single small zone for recording and notifications).  It has lowered the temp a bit at which it can stay above water, although only a little.  It's been fixed at around 3-4% charged down to around 30F or so.  Last night we dropped down to around 22F and will stay there most of the day today.  It's now loosing ground (around 2% right now), so will shut off soon.   Pretty light activity for the last few days with a doorbell press or two and something like 5-8 recorded events per day.

As  expected, it is now shut down at around 2%.  It looks like steady use in the 20's F will require using battery save mode (which means it would only work for button presses).   It is of limited value in that mode, of course.

MplsCustomer
Bronze
Bronze

This is a curious development: an indoor 20-foot power adapter for the Google Nest Doorbell (battery or wired), listed but not yet available on the Google Store:

https://store.google.com/us/product/ninety7_indoor_power_adapter_nest_hello?hl=en-US

Not really a development because they intended for the thing to be be able to be wired just one problem doesn't charge in cold weather 

Yeah, that's just a transformer for folks that don't have one.  No different than hooking to a doorbell transformer.

JoshSpicer
Community Member

Experiencing the same issue here @ -15c. 

I will try to upgrade from 16v/10av to 24v/20av to see if there is a difference. 

 

I want a free upgrade to the new wired one when it releases. (If there is no fix) I'm outside my return window unfortunately. (By 6 days, so I will have to call and see)

MplsCustomer
Bronze
Bronze

When I posted the link to the power adapter for Nest doorbells on the Google Store yesterday, I was misled by its "Coming Soon" status and thought it was a new development. Apparently it's been "coming soon" since at least August of 2020 (https://digitized.house/ninety7-indoor-power-adapter-for-the-nest-hello-doorbell/), and Google Nest Support's response to the September 2021 post below was a boilerplate "What troubleshooting steps have you done thus far?" message. Really?  How does a customer troubleshoot an unavailable Google product?

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Cameras-and-Doorbells/Ninety7-Indoor-Power-Adapter-for-Google...

Maciek
Community Member

I'm having the same issue. The temperature were recently between +5C and 0C (UK) and my doorbell also discharched all the way to 6% despite being hardwired (24v beefy PSU). 

I wonder if we're going to experience similar issues in the summer temperatures...

 

I wouldn't expect any charging issues at high temps at least.  The charging efficiency of rechargeable batteries mostly gets better with temperature (to a point.. there are others issues with high temps, though..mostly safety related).  I wouldn't be surprised if it shut off at very high temps (over the specified 104F max temp) for safety (fire risk).